Police: NJ man shot in Pa. answering online ATV ad

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man apparently answering an advertisement on a social media site for sale of an all-terrain vehicle was shot and killed in north Philadelphia, police said.

The 27-year-old New Jersey man and two other people were in the West Oak Lane section of the city Friday night answering a Craigslist ad for the ATV, a police spokeswoman said.

Witnesses said he got out of the vehicle and talked with a man who had a white towel on his head who told him to walk around to look at the four-wheeler, police said. Investigators said he walked down the street and the two other people in the car lost sight of him, and they heard two gunshots shortly afterward.

Officers found the victim on the street with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the left side of his face, and emergency responders pronounced him dead at 11:23 p.m. Friday, police said. No arrests have been reported.

Authorities across the country have cited online advertisements in a number of alleged scams and other crimes, including slayings.

Last month, three San Diego men were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in the robbery and slaying of a college student who answered a Craigslist ad. Authorities said they lured 18-year-old Garrett Berki in 2011 with a Craigslist ad offering a laptop computer for sale.

In March, a self-styled street preacher was convicted in Ohio of killing three down-and-out men lured by bogus Craigslist job offers. Jurors recommended the death penalty for 53-year-old Richard Beasley after convicting him of teaming up with a teenager in 2011 to lure men with offers of farmhand jobs in southeast Ohio and to rob them. Three men were killed, and a fourth who was wounded testified at Beasley's trial.